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---------------------------------------------------- Review of Unilimited Power Seminars http://www.randi.org/jr/090602.html http://www.randi.org/jr/091302.html (scroll down) http://www.advweb.com/michael/tony_robbins/personal_power_2_review.shtml Like
many people in America, I learned of Tony Robbins while searching through the
cable channels at 2am.
He was very impressive, attractive (not just in looks but as a person),
and very charismatic.
I was just a poor college student so when the price came up I decided
against it.
Then many years later, I once again came upon Tony Robbins.
But this time I had matured a lot and had even taken an interest in
some self-help type books (Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus for
example).
The self-help books really interest me because I constantly am looking
for ways to improve myself.
So when I had an opportunity to borrow Tony’s “Personal Power 2”
CDs I decided to give it a try.
I searched the Internet for reviews and found two reoccurring yet
drastically different views:
“He’s a crook” or “He changed my life”.
Later I found out this is actually a common pattern with self-help type
material.
You can see this for yourself by searching for your favorite self-help
book at Amazon.com and read the reviews, first sorting by highest rating first
and then by lowest rating first.
Even the Mars & Venus book, which is one of my favorites, has
reviews from both ends of the spectrum.
If the reviews were all negative, I probably would have passed, but
since there were lots of positive reviews I decided to try it out. So
why exactly did I decide to try the PP2 program?
Well first let me give a brief introduction to who I am.
I consider myself successful.
I’ve always had a good job and have always had enough money to be
able to buy the things I want and do the things I want to do.
I’m a hard worker, for the majority of my working life I’ve worked
two jobs at the same time.
I’m definitely not materialistic.
I’m very optimistic and positive, and am almost never depressed.
So there you have it, a successful (by my own definition of course)
person without money or relationship problems, relatively happy and content
with his life.
So why did I decide to try PP2?
There are three reasons:
The first is I always belief there is room to improve.
The second is I was really curious to find out who Anthony Robbins was
and if his material was as good as his image.
And the third, and possibly the most important reason I decided to try
PP2 is that I didn’t have to shell out $200 for the program! I
not only decided to try the program, I decided to do it and to really follow
through with it.
This was important, because I suspect a lot of people who complain
about the program just listen to the tapes and don’t really follow through.
In each of the CDs, he gives exercises to do.
Often there are exercises during the CD, and for this reason it’s not
really possible to listen to the tapes while driving, working, exercising, or
any other activity.
I also found that if I didn’t pay absolute attention while listening
to the CD, I would miss stuff.
A couple times I tried listening while doing other things like surfing
the Internet, but I couldn’t do it.
It really does require total concentration.
I took these exercises seriously, which was quite easy to do because
Tony is very motivating. So
what did I think?
Overall, I really enjoyed the program and was glad I had done it.
I won’t say “Tony changed my life” but I will say “I decided to
change my life”.
I know that sounds fake, or weird, or wacky, whatever you want to call
it, but it’s not really.
If you’re not ready and willing to change your life, then save
yourself some time and money and don’t do the program.
It’s that simple.
The program is for people who really want to change.
And it’s actually not that difficult to do.
It’s simple things, like setting goals and actively working on them,
following specific steps to solve problems, learning how to better interact
with others, etc. Here
are some specific observations: I
think how people react to the program will depend mainly on their eagerness to
change.
I’ve mentioned some of the ideas to people who weren’t interested
in trying anything new.
So obviously the program isn’t going to work for them.
Tony makes the program very expensive (around $200) so that people will
not buy it unless they are really committed.
Hey you have to be really committed in order to spend $200 on it!
So I feel it is the actual person using the program that will determine
whether they are successful and not the program itself.
Think of it this way:
You can give a “how to draw” book and pencil and paper to several
people and get back totally different results.
It’s the same with Personal Power 2. Tony
presents a new approach to different subjects each day.
As a result, it’s easy to “forget” what he taught the previous
day and just focus on the current day.
If you do this, however, at the end of the 30 days you won’t get much
out of it.
You really have to keep using the previous material in addition to the
new.
This isn’t easy when you have new material every day for several
weeks.
As a result, I feel I need to do the entire program again to let it
“sink in”. The
most important techniques I got out of the program were goal setting and NLP (Neurolinguistic
Programming) techniques (anchors, associations, etc.)
Goal setting is pretty obvious, we must set goals for ourselves, yes
everyone does this.
But we must also act on our goals every day.
For example, how many people would like to learn to play piano?
Learn a foreign language?
Learn to draw?
Go back to school for a degree?
Yet put it off as something they’ll do “someday”?
Tony is great at motivating you to not only set goals but to act upon
them every day.
Anchoring is connecting a state (such as feeling really happy) to
something physical (an action, some words, etc.) in order to use the action to
put yourself back in the state.
In other words, how’d you like to just clap your hands and be happy
and energized all of a sudden?
I know that sounds crazy but it’s possible!
And finally, associations can be created (“exercise is fun”) or
broken (“smoking is pleasurable”).
In fact making and breaking associations was my favorite part of the
entire program.
Before the program I had no idea this was even possible.
Now it’s something I want to continue learning about.
Tony didn’t invent NLP, but he is quite good at explaining it and
teaching it. Tony
really emphasizes money and places great importance on it.
This kind of bothered me.
I’m not very materialistic and for me money is not the most important
thing in my life.
Tony seems to say that if you’re happy with the money you have then
something is wrong with you and I don’t agree with this at all.
Why would he place so much emphasis on money?
Because he has some financial seminars where he teaches people how to
make money.
He even talks about how in his seminars he teaches people to make 16%
returns on very safe investments.
This simply doesn’t exist, an anyone who followed his advice with
money they couldn’t afford to lose are probably pretty upset with him right
now during this major recession.
Overall with the money bit, I really felt he was preying on those that
don’t have a lot of money.
He mentions his helicopter and his castle every chance he gets, and
never misses an opportunity to plug his financial seminars.
He even says many times “If you can’t afford to come, then you must
come!” Throughout
the program Tony constantly promotes his seminars.
A little is OK but I really felt like the program was becoming a big
long infomercial.
Tony starts on a topic and then tells us how we don’t have time in
this program to fully cover the topic.
He then gives a little teaser and then plugs his seminars.
I read in the newsgroup about someone who attended a seminar and in the
seminar Tony said they didn’t have enough time for all 6 steps and could
only cover the first 3, but the next seminar would contain the rest. About
half of each tape is Tony rambling.
Don’t get me wrong, he’s very entertaining and it’s definitely
not boring, I really enjoy listening to the guy.
But it is a little frustrating when he says he doesn’t have time for
something and then plugs a seminar for five minutes, when if he hadn’t
rambled on in the first place he’d have plenty of time to fully cover the
original topic. In
summary, each tape contains some really useful information, some rambling
rambling, and a lot of commercials for seminars.
If you can separate the useful information from the rest, you can
greatly benefit from it.
But like I said, Tony is holding back.
He’s giving a little bit of information to entice you to attend a
seminar.
The information he does give is really good, and if you are determined,
you can use it to change your life.
I did put his information to use and I did make several changes that I
hope will be long lasting.
I really enjoyed the program and will probably redo it to pick up the
pieces that I forgot or just plain missed.
If I have the opportunity to listen to another one of his programs for
free, I will definitely do it.
Do I think Personal Power 2 is worth the $200 price?
If we assume only 1/3 of the information in the program is useful (with
the rest being 1/3 being seminar advertisements and 1/3 rambling), that would
mean you’d get about 8 hours of useful information (based on a total of 23
hours).
$200 for 8 hours is $25/hour, which is half the price of a
psychologist.
That said, for me personally I’m not sure it would have been worth
$200.
If it weren’t just a teaser, if it had more information and fewer
commercials, then I would definitely without a doubt say yes.
Keep in mind that $200 is just the beginning, because after you spend
$200 you’ll feel compelled to spend hundreds more to get the rest of the
material that he’s holding back.
It’s marketed as a complete 30-day program but really it’s just the
first part of a long series of programs that cumulates in outrageously
expensive week long seminars in Fiji!
How many people can afford that?
He makes you think that if you follow his programs you’ll be able to
afford it.
But I’m really skeptical about his whole getting rich stuff.
If you don’t have a friend or coworker you can borrow it from, try
looking for it at your local library.
I’ve heard many libraries carry Tony’s programs and you can use
them for free (actually your tax dollars paid for it).
Or try splitting the cost with a friend or family member, but just make
sure they are really motivated to do the program or else they’ll be angry
with you when they it doesn’t work for them! What’s
next for me?
I plan to try some other self-help motivational type programs.
And then after trying out some others, I play to do another one of
Tony’s programs to see what kind of information he held back.
But in the meantime I plan to review the material from Personal Power 2
and apply it as I move forward.
I
hope this review has helped you.
If you are like I was, you’re really interested in Tony Robbins yet
skeptical at the same time.
Really there is some good information there so if you are determined to
make some positive changes in your life then go for it! Michael
/ michael@advweb.com
Review of Tony Robbins' Get The Edge Michael / michael@advweb.com The program is supposed to teach you to (quoted from the website):
Day 1 - Your Hour Of PowerThe summary of this tape is to take the first hour of every day and do things for yourself. Tony suggests exercising for at least some of this time (if not all). You can use this time to send emails to your friends and family, work on a project you've been putting off, etc. This isn't a bad idea, but I find during the week my time is especially limited so this isn't as easy to do. He says we must do it to put ourselves first. I usually put my wife first. I don't see my wife that often during the week (I work a lot and have a 1 hour commute each way) and if I come home and tell her I need to do my "hour of power" she would probably kill me.Day 2- Results WorkshopIt's funny, I just did this CD last week and I don't remember much about this tape. I think that's my main gripe about the program. Tony claims you will learn all this stuff, and after you've finished the CD it's hard to remember the details. Maybe if I listened to the CD again I would be able to retain it all. Or maybe all the information wasn't there. The overall point of this CD is to inspire you to work towards your goals.Day 3- Power of RelationshipsThis was a pretty good CD, I enjoyed this one. I think Tony gives solid advice here on relationships. It's more geared towards people who aren't married, but I found the information was still useful to those of us who've already choosen our life long partner.Day 4- Pure Energy Live!This CD was total bullshit. It was during this CD that I realized Tony is often full of shit. I mean I suspected it, but in this tape he made it totally obvious. First he started talking about acid and how it's bad for the body. I became suspicious but thought maybe it's possible. But then Tony started talking about measuring energy in Mhz. Yes MegaHertz! He claimed a Big Mac has 5 Mhz of energy. I knew from all my science classes that this was complete bullshit! I couldn't believe Tony was saying this. Couldn't he verify his material with a scientist or nutritionist? Hertz measures frequency, not energy. In food energy is measured in calories. Ok, so now I'm suspicious of Robbins. Later he talks about cleansing the body with a wheat germ drink for 10 days. It just so happens his pal Dr. Young has an entire line of products for sale to help us achieve this cleansing! Ok, now I'm really suspicious! Tony's not going to get away with this I say!Day 5- Power Of EmotionsThis CD is OK, the material makes sense but I can't say it benefited me. I don't even remember what it was about and I just listened to it yesterday.Day 6- Financial FreedomTony starts this CD off with a portion of one of his live seminars. For over 10 minutes I listened to how poor he was. How he would go to the grocery store and eat food right there in the store because he didn't have enough money to buy it. How he took a girl to a restaurant and prayed she wouldn't order anything expensive. After 10 minutes of this I had had enough and shut the CD off. On day 4 he made his stupid claims about nutrition, and now he's telling really sad stories of how poor he was. It doesn't take a genius to see what's coming next: How to get rich! He had already mentioned his new business venture DreamLife.com a few times and invited the listener to invest in it (it has already IPO'd and been delisted after going bankrupt).The next day I finished the tape, and to my suprise Tony gave really solid advice here on investing. I can sum it up right here in two sentences: Invest early and regularly to take advantage of compound interest, and use asset allocation. These are two very simple yet effective rules for investing. I find it a bit misleading that Tony sells this CD package promoting "Capitalize on once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for achieving financial freedom" which turns out to be nothing more than two common pieces of investment advice and advertisements for his seminars and investments. Actually I find it a lot misleading. Don't get me wrong, the advice is very good, but it's advice you can easily find with Google. Day 7- The Purpose Of LifeIt's been less than a week sine I did this CD and I don't remember much about it. The main message was to figure out what your purpose is in life. I guess it relates to goal setting. Like day 2 and 5, I consider this material "fluff". It's only purpose is short term motivation. More on that later.SummaryI stated in my Review of Personal Power 2 that PP2 contained useful information, rambling, and commercials for seminars. I must add one more ingredient for Get the Edge: A little bullshit. So now my issue is how much of what Robbins is saying is true and how much is false? That's the problem, once I catch someone lying they have lost my trust. I still think Robbins has some good information and good ideas, so if you can separate the useful stuff from the bullshit you can really benefit.Ignoring the "bullshit", this program contains two sorts of information: Basic useful information that is pretty much common knowledge and can easily be found for free elsewhere, and less useful information that serves mainly as short term motivational material. The useful information was the advice on relationships and the investment advice. The motivational material will make you feel good when you listen to it, and even get you excited about life, but then it wears off and you're left with very little. I think this is a key part of Tony's marketing: He is good at "pumping you up" and making you excited, and that's when he promotes his seminars. And after the motivation has worn off, you're probably even more likely to want to attend a seminar to get this feeling again. Overall there is no way this program is worth the $200 price tag. There's no groundbreaking material here. There's not even anything new (except for the Big Mac 5Mhz claims). Unlike Personal Power 2, I really felt Get The Edge totally lacked any material to justify any price. Fortunately for me I didn't pay a penny for it, which is about how much I think it is worth. And finally the most important point in the summary: Robbins' goal is to get you to the seminars, which cost $10,000 (after the "high pressure discount"). His introductory programs are designed to weed out suspicious people like me and to hook naive people with money. Once he gets you to his seminars he will sell you devices that don't work (The Q-Link), investment opportunities that will leave you broke (Dreamlife.com), and of course more seminars (the more advanced ones are held in Fiji where it will cost you over $4,500 per couple for airfare, hotel, and meals, in addition to the $10,000 price tag). I've learned a lot about Tony since starting Personal Power 2, and the more I learn the less I like him. Micheal / michael@advweb.com
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